Ink jet printing apparatus, ink jet printing method, and preliminary discharge control method

ABSTRACT

On performing a predetermined printing operation, whether or not, among a plurality of printing elements, only a part of the printing elements are applied is detected. If it is judged that only the part of the printing elements are used, a judgment is made whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is performed based on the number of discharges for the part of the printing elements, and if it is not judged that only the part of the printing elements are used, a judgment is made whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is performed based on the number of discharges for all of the printing elements of the printing head. This eliminates an unnecessary preliminary discharge for non-printing elements even in a printing operation mode in which only a part of the printing elements are applied.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an ink jet printing apparatus and amethod of controlling preliminary discharge of the apparatus.

2. Description of the Related Art

An ink jet printing head discharges an ink droplet within a nozzle froma minute hole (hereinafter referred to as a discharge port) of thenozzle toward a printing medium to perform printing. As the printinghead discharges the ink, the ink within the nozzle is decreased and anew ink is charged from an ink chamber by capillary force.

However, when the ink is not discharged over a long period of time,evaporation of moisture and a solvent of the ink may cause a colormaterial to be precipitated at the discharge port and the precipitatedcolor material may form a film at the discharge port, thus preventing anormal ink discharge. A kinetic energy produced to discharge the inkdroplet by a printing operation of the printing head is consumed inbreaking the film. As a result, the ink droplet cannot achieve asufficient discharge speed and thus cannot be printed in a desiredposition on the printing medium.

To cope with this, the ink jet printing apparatus performs a preliminarydischarge operation to move the printing head outside the printingmedium and to discharge the ink at a predetermined location before acomplete film is formed at the discharge port. By performing thepreliminary discharge operation, the nozzle can be maintained in acondition to do a normal ink discharge during printing.

In general, a serial-scanning ink jet printing apparatus judges whetheror not a predetermined time has passed since a previous preliminarydischarge at the time of an inversion during reciprocating scanning of acarriage with a printing head, and performs such control as to move theprinting head outside a printing medium for a preliminary discharge ifthe predetermined time has passed.

However, frequent preliminary discharge operations cause printing speedto be decreased, and also involve the disadvantage that consumption ofthe ink except in actual printing leads to a rise in running costs.

In order to eliminate such disadvantage, for example, Japanese PatentApplication Laid-open No. 63-252748 discloses a control method, whereinthe number of actuations of a plurality of nozzles is measured in apredetermined time, and if the value measured is less than apredetermined number, a preliminary discharge is performed, while if thevalue measured is equal to or greater than the predetermined number, thepreliminary discharge is not performed. This method eliminates thepreliminary discharge operation of nozzles undergoing frequent dischargeoperations, and therefore the time and amount of ink wasted in thepreliminary discharge are reduced.

Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-082629 discloses amethod, wherein the number of actuations of a plurality of nozzles ismeasured in a predetermined time, a judgment is made whether the valuemeasured is equal to or greater than a predetermined number, and basedon the judgment, a subsequent printable time is adjusted. And with eachcompletion of a printing scanning, the adjusted printable time iscompared with the time required for subsequent printing scanning, and apreliminary discharge operation is performed if the printable time isshorter. A control method like this does not perform the preliminarydischarge carelessly with each printing scanning even when the timerequired for one printing scanning is equivalent to discharge-guaranteetime of non-discharge nozzles. This enables the preliminary discharge tobe efficiently performed without reducing throughput as much aspossible.

The preliminary discharge of the ink jet printing apparatus is animportant operation required to maintain image quality. On the otherhand, however, the preliminary discharge can trigger an increased inkconsumption and decreased throughput. Based on this standpoint, one ofthe problems in recent ink jet printing apparatuses is how efficientlyand unwastedly the preliminary discharge operation is performed.

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for so-called“margin-less printing” in which an image is formed on a printing mediumwithout setting in any margin. And a number of arrangements or printingmethods which enable such printing have already been proposed (refer toJapanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-127353 and No.2004-1416). When, in the “margin-less printing”, printing is performedin the vicinity of an endmost portion of the printing medium, support ofthe printing medium becomes unstable, which may cause conveyanceaccuracy of the printing medium to be decreased. Also, there areconcerns that ink discharged running off the printing medium maycontaminate an inside of the apparatus or of a non-printed area of theprinting medium. Therefore, as disclosed in the above-mentionedpublication, No. 2004-1416, for printing in the vicinity of the endmostportion of the printing medium, a method is generally adopted in whichthe number of nozzles to be practically applied to the printing islimited.

Even when such “margin-less printing” is performed, the preliminarydischarge method described in either of the above-mentionedpublications, No. 63-252748 or No. 2004-082629, has been conventionallyadopted. However, with a limited number of nozzles for printing on theendmost portion, non-discharge nozzles which are not involved inprinting always exist, and therefore the conventional preliminarydischarge control methods are not able to bring about an efficientpreliminary discharge operation. That is, during printing in thevicinity of the endmost portion of the printing medium, due to thenozzles which are not involved in the printing, more preliminarydischarge operations than required are performed, and accordingly theink is improperly consumed, resulting in a decreased throughput.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has been made in view of the foregoing problem andtherefore has an object to provide an ink jet printing apparatus and apreliminary discharge control method which are capable of performing amore efficient preliminary discharge operation in terms of inkconsumption and throughput even when the number of nozzles to be used islimited for image formation as in the “margin-less printing”.

The first aspect of the present invention is an ink jet printingapparatus for printing an-image on a printing medium using a printinghead having a plurality of printing elements to discharge ink,comprising: means for counting the number of discharges by the printingelements of the printing head; means for judging whether or not apreliminary discharge operation of the printing head is necessary, basedon the number of discharges obtained by the counting means; and meansfor performing the preliminary discharge by the printing elements of theprinting head in accordance with a result of the judgment by the judgingmeans, wherein when a printing operation is performed using only a partof the printing elements among the plurality of the printing elements ofthe printing head, the judging means judges whether or not thepreliminary discharge operation is necessary based on the number ofdischarges counted for the part of the printing elements.

The second aspect of the present invention is an ink jet printingapparatus for printing an image on a printing medium using a printinghead having a plurality of printing elements to discharge ink,comprising: print control means for performing a first printingoperation in which printing is performed on a central part of theprinting medium using the plurality of the printing elements and asecond printing operation in which printing is performed on front andrear portions of the printing medium using a part of the printingelements smaller in number than the plurality of printing elements;means for counting the number of discharges by the printing elements ofthe printing head; means for judging whether or not a preliminarydischarge operation of the printing head is necessary, based on thenumber of discharges obtained by the counting means; and means forperforming the preliminary discharge by the printing elements of theprinting head in accordance with a result of the judgment by the judgingmeans, wherein the judging means, when the second printing operation isperformed, judges whether or not the preliminary discharge operation isnecessary based on the number of discharges counted for the part of theprinting elements, and when the first printing operation is performed,judges whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessarybased on the number of discharges counted for the plurality of theprinting elements.

The third aspect of the present invention is an ink jet printingapparatus for printing an image on a printing medium using a printinghead including a plurality of printing elements to discharge ink,comprising: means for detecting whether or not only a part of theprinting elements among the plurality of the printing elements are usedfor a printing operation; means for counting the number of discharges bythe printing elements for the printing operation; means for judgingwhether or not a preliminary discharge operation of the printing head isnecessary based on the number of discharges obtained by the countingmeans; and means for performing the preliminary discharge by theprinting elements of the printing head in accordance with a result ofthe judgment by the judging means, wherein the judging means, if thedetecting means detects that only the part of the printing elements areused, judges whether or not the preliminary discharge operation isnecessary based on the number of discharges for the part of the printingelements, and if the detecting means does not detect that only the partof the printing elements are used, judges whether or not the preliminarydischarge operation is necessary based on the number of discharges forall of the printing elements of the printing head.

The forth aspect of the present invention is an ink jet printing methodfor printing an image on a printing medium using a printing headincluding a plurality of printing elements to discharge ink, comprisingthe steps of: counting the number of discharges by the printing elementsof the printing head; judging whether or not a preliminary dischargeoperation of the printing head is necessary, based on the number ofdischarges obtained by the counting step; and performing the preliminarydischarge by the printing elements of the printing head in accordancewith a result of the judgment, wherein, when a printing operation isperformed using only a part of the printing elements among the pluralityof printing elements of the printing head, in the judging step, whetheror not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary is judged basedon the number of discharges counted for the part of the printingelements.

The fifth aspect of the present invention is an ink jet printing methodfor printing an image on a printing medium using a printing head havinga plurality of printing elements to discharge ink, comprising: a firstprinting step of performing printing on a central part of the printingmedium using the plurality of the printing elements ; a second printingstep of performing printing on front and rear portions of the printingmedium using a part of the printing elements smaller in number than theplurality of printing elements; a counting step of counting the numberof discharges by the printing elements of the printing head; a judgingstep of judging whether or not a preliminary discharge operation of theprinting head is necessary, based on the number of discharges obtainedby the counting step; and a step of performing the preliminary dischargeby the printing elements of the printing head in accordance with aresult of the judgment, wherein, for the second printing step, whetheror not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary is judged basedon the number of discharges counted for the part of the printingelements in the judging step, and for the first printing step, whetheror not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary is judged basedon the number of discharges counted for the plurality of the printingelements in the judging step.

The sixth aspect of the present invention is a preliminary dischargecontrol method for an ink jet printing apparatus for printing an imageon a printing medium using a printing head having a plurality ofprinting elements to discharge ink, comprising the steps of: detectingwhether or not only a part of the printing elements among the pluralityof printing elements are used for a printing operation ; counting thenumber of discharges from each of the printing elements for the printingoperation; judging whether or not a preliminary discharge operation ofthe printing head is necessary based on the number of dischargesobtained by the counting step; and performing the preliminary dischargeby the printing elements of the printing head in accordance with aresult of the judgment by the judging step, wherein if it is detectedthat only the part of the printing elements are used in the detectingstep, whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary isjudged based on the number of the discharges for the part of theprinting elements in the judging step, and if it is not detected thatonly the part of the printing elements are used in the detecting step,whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary isjudged based on the number of discharges for all of the printingelements of the printing head in the judging step.

The above and other objects, effects, features and advantages of thepresent invention will become more apparent from the followingdescription of embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing an outline of aconstruction of an ink jet printing apparatus as a typical embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 2 is a detail drawing (a perspective view) of a printing headcartridge used in the embodiment of the present invention as viewed froma discharge port side;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of a printingapparatus applied in the embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are enlarged views of a platen provided in the printingapparatus in the embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 5A to 5C are schematic views illustrating a positionalrelationship between a printing medium and a printing head in thevicinity of the platen when “margin-less printing” is performed;

FIG. 6 is a schematic view illustrating an arrangement of dischargeports of a printing head applied in the embodiment of the presentinvention and an area of discharge ports that practically perform adischarge operation when printing is performed on front and rear edgesin the “margin-less printing”;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a preliminary discharge controlprocessing; and

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an interrupt processing by aninterrupt timer.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will hereinafter bedescribed in detail with reference to the accompany drawings. A term“printing” as used herein refers not only to formation of significantinformation such as characters and graphics but also broadly toformation of images, figures, patterns, and the like on a printingmedium, or processing of the medium, regardless of whether they aresignificant or insignificant and whether or not they are embodied so asto be visually perceived by human beings. Also, a term “printing medium”refers not only to paper for use in common printing apparatus but alsobroadly to ink-acceptable materials such as cloth, a plastic film, ametal sheet, glass, ceramics, wood, and leather. Further, a term “ink”is broadly interpreted as in the definition of the “printing” describedabove, and refers to a liquid which, when applied to the printingmedium, can form images, figures, patterns, and the like, can processthe printing medium, or can process the ink (for example, solidify orinsolubilize a coloring material in the ink applied to the printingmedium). Furthermore, a term “nozzle” refers generally to a dischargeport to a fluid channel communicating therewith and an element whichproduces energy to be utilized for ink discharge unless otherwise noted.

Additionally, a term “margin-less printing” as used herein meansprinting on at least one of front and rear edges of the printing mediumwithout setting any margin. The margin-less printing generally requiresthat the size of a printing area be greater than that of the printingmedium, but it is acceptable that the size of the printing areacorresponds to that of the printing medium.

<Description of the Ink Jet Printing Apparatus>

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view showing an outline of aconstruction of an ink jet printing apparatus 1 as a typical embodimentof the present invention. Referring to the figure, there is shown acarriage 2 capable of moving in the direction of arrow A shown with aprinting head cartridge 3 mounted. The printing head cartridge 3 isequipped with a printing head to discharge ink in accordance with animage signal and a removable ink tank 6 to supply the ink to thisprinting head. The printing apparatus 1 in the present embodiment allowsfor color printing and the printing head cartridge 3 is equipped withfour ink tanks 6 containing magenta (M), cyan (C), yellow (Y), and black(Bk) inks, respectively. These four ink tanks 6 are independentlyremovably attached to the printing head cartridge 3. Each of the colorinks contained in the ink tanks 6 is supplied to the printing head witha discharge operation.

FIG. 2 is a detail drawing (a perspective view) of the printing headcartridge 3 used in the present embodiment as viewed from a dischargeport side. The printing head cartridge 3 is shown inverted compared witha normal service condition. Discharge port arrays 40Bk, 40C, 40M, and40Y are designed to discharge four color inks, Bk (black), C (cyan), M(magenta), and Y (yellow), respectively. The ink tank 6 of each color isconfigured to be attached from the direction of an arrow in the figure.

The printing head in the present embodiment adopts an ink jet system inwhich thermal energy is used to discharge the ink and has anelectrothermal converter to produce thermal energy within eachindividual nozzle. For printing (discharge), according to image signals,electrical energy is applied to each individual electrothermalconverter, where it is converted into thermal energy. Due to rapid heatgeneration, film boiling takes place in the ink near the electrothermalconverter, and by growth and contraction of bubbles, a given amount ofink is discharged from the discharge port.

The printing head cartridge 3 has a contact surface 43 to establish andmaintain an electrical connection with the carriage 2. Depending onprinting signals received from the contact surface 43, the printing head3 can selectively discharge the ink from a plurality of nozzles(discharge ports).

Referring again to FIG. 1, the carriage 2 is coupled to a part of adrive belt 7 of a transmission mechanism to transmit a driving force ofa carriage motor M1, and is slidably guided and supported along a guideshaft 13 in the direction of arrow A. Therefore, the carriage 2 isarranged to be able to reciprocate along the guide shaft 13 throughnormal and reverse rotations of the carriage motor M1.

Along the moving direction (the direction of arrow A) of the carriage 2,a scale 8 to indicate an absolute position of the carriage 2 isprovided. The scale 8 in the present embodiment is made of a transparentPET film on which a black bar is printed at a predetermined pitch. Oneend of the scale 8 is fixed to a chassis 9 and the other is supported bya blade spring (not shown).

With the arrangement described above, while the carriage 2 is doingscanning, the printing head 3 can discharge the ink at an appropriatetiming according to the positional information. This allows an imagecorresponding to one printing scanning to be formed on the printingmedium P. In a position opposite to the printing head 3, a platen (notshown in FIG. 1) is disposed in such a manner as to support the printingmedium P from the underside thereof. The printing apparatus 1 in thepresent embodiment is a printing apparatus capable of “margin-lessprinting”. For that purpose the platen is made to have a specialfeature, but the details of the platen will be described later.

When one printing scanning is performed, the printing medium P isconveyed in the direction of arrow B by a conveying mechanism to bedescribed below. A conveyor motor M2 (not shown in FIG. 1) functions asa driving force of the conveying mechanism and a conveying roller 14makes contact with the printing medium P to convey it. A driving forceof the conveyor motor M2 is transmitted to the conveying roller 14through an intermediate gear (not shown) and a conveying roller gear 17fixed to one end of the conveying roller 14. The printing medium P isbrought into contact with the conveying roller 14 by a pinch roller 15urged by a spring (not shown) and is conveyed in the direction of arrowB with rotation of the conveying roller 14. In addition, the pinchroller 15 is rotatably supported by a pinch roller holder 16.

A discharging roller 20 discharges the printing medium P on which animage is formed outside the printing apparatus. The discharging roller20 is also rotated by the driving force transmitted from the conveyormotor M2. The printing medium P is brought into contact with thedischarging roller 20 by a spur roller urged by a spring (not shown).The spur roller is rotatably supported by a spur roller holder 22. Theprinting medium P is conveyed in the direction of arrow B, being clippedby two pairs of rollers, i.e., a roller pair consisting of the conveyingroller 14 and the pinch roller 15, and a roller pair consisting of thedischarging roller 20 and the spur roller. However, the printing mediumis clipped and conveyed only by either roller pair while printing isperformed on a front or rear edge of the printing medium in the“margin-less printing”.

With the arrangement described above, intermittent repetition of mainprinting scanning by the printing head cartridge 3 and a given amount ofconveying operation allows an image to be formed one after another onthe printing medium P.

In a position (for example, a position corresponding to a home position)outside a printing scanning area of the carriage 2, a recovery device tomake the printing head recover from a discharge failure is disposed. Therecovery device includes a capping mechanism 11 to cap the dischargeport surface of the printing head, and a wiping mechanism 12 and asuction member 10 to clean the discharge port surface of the printinghead. With the discharge port surface capped with the capping mechanism11, the suction member 10 forcibly discharges the ink from the dischargeport, and thereby viscosity-increased ink, bubbles or the like existingwithin an ink flow channel in the nozzle can be removed. Also, when noprinting operation is performed, the discharge port surface of theprinting head is capped with the capping mechanism 11, and thereby theprinting head can be protected and the ink can be prevented fromevaporating from the discharge port and from drying.

On the other hand, the wiping mechanism 12 is arranged in the vicinityof the capping mechanism 11 to serve to wipe an ink droplet or the likeoff the discharge port surface of the printing head. The recovery devicecomprising the capping mechanism 11, the wiping mechanism 12, and thesuction member 10 enables the ink discharge condition of the printinghead to be normally maintained.

<Control Architecture of the Ink Jet Printing Apparatus>

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of theprinting apparatus applied in the present embodiment. Referring to thefigure, there is shown a controller 600 which governs control of theentire printing apparatus. The controller 600 is provided with an MPU601, a ROM 602, an ASIC 603, a RAM 604, a system bus 605, an A/Dconverter 606, and the like.

The ROM 602 stores programs corresponding to a control sequence to beexecuted by the MPU 601, required tables, other fixed data, and thelike. The ASIC 603 serves to generate control signals to control thecarriage motor M1, the conveyor motor M2, and a printing head 31. TheRAM 604 is utilized as an area for decompression of image data or as aworking area for program execution. The system bus 605 interconnects theMPU 601, the ASIC 603, and the RAM 604 to transmit and receive dataamong them. And, the A/D converter 606 inputs and A/D-converts analogsignals from a group of sensors 630 and sends digital signals to the MPU601.

A host device 610, being externally connected, is connected through aninterface 611 to the printing apparatus in the present embodiment. Thehost device 610 may be of any form if it serves as a source of supply ofimage data to the printing apparatus, and a computer, a reader for imagescanning, a digital camera or the like is applicable. The interface 611is capable of sending and receiving a variety of commands and statussignals or the like of the printing apparatus in addition to the imagedata.

A group of switches 620 comprises switches to receive command inputsfrom an operator, such as a power switch 621, a printing switch 622 togive a command to start printing, and a recovery switch 623 to give adirection to initiate a recovery operation. A group of sensors 630 todetect a status of the apparatus comprises a position sensor 631 such asa photo-coupler to detect the home position and a temperature sensor 632to detect environmental temperature.

Further, there are shown a carriage motor driver 640 to drive thecarriage motor M1 and a conveyor motor driver 642 to drive the conveyormotor M2.

When a printing command is inputted from the host device 610, theprinting apparatus body analyzes the command and decompresses image datato a decompression buffer in the RAM 604. The decompressed image data issubjected to a given processing and then stored in a printing buffer inthe RAM 604. For printing scanning, the ASIC 603 transmits drive data tothe printing head 31 while having a direct access to the printing bufferin the RAM 604.

Next, a printing method used when “margin-less printing” is performed inthe apparatus in the present embodiment will be described.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are enlarged views of a platen 400 provided in theprinting apparatus in the present embodiment. FIG. 4A is a perspectiveview and FIG. 4B is a cross-sectional view. The platen 400 has upwardlyprojecting ribs 401 and 402. Thus, the printing medium P passing acrossthe platen 400 is conveyed in the direction of B (sub-scanningdirection) while being supported by top faces of the ribs 401 and 402.Disposed between the ribs 401 and 402 is a groove 404 with an inkabsorber 403 therein, which receives ink that has run off the printingmedium during “margin-less printing”. It should, however, be noted thatproviding the groove 404 with the ink absorber 403 is not essential forthe margin-less printing.

FIGS. 5A to 5C are schematic views illustrating a positionalrelationship between the printing medium P and the printing head 31 inthe vicinity of the platen 400 when “margin-less printing” is performed.

On starting printing, in order to first perform the printing on a frontedge Pa, the printing medium P is conveyed to a position where the frontedge Pa is disposed between the ribs 401 and 402. This state is shown inFIG. 5A. When a positioning operation of the printing medium P iscompleted, the printing head 31 performs scanning in a main scanningdirection and discharges ink droplets onto the front edge Pa (refer toFIG. 5B). At this moment, nozzles that actually perform a dischargeoperation are a part of the nozzles arranged in the printing head 31.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view illustrating an arrangement of dischargeports of the printing head 31 applied in the present embodiment and anarea of discharge ports that practically perform a discharge operationwhen printing is performed on the front and rear edges in “margin-lessprinting”. As already described in FIG. 1, the printing head 31 in thepresent embodiment includes the nozzle array 40Bk for black, nozzlearray 40C for cyan, nozzle array 40M for magenta, and nozzle array 40Yfor yellow, and in each nozzle array, 256 nozzles are arranged at apredetermined pitch in the sub-scanning direction (direction B).

When the printing apparatus is in a normal printing mode, not“margin-less printing” and when, even in the “margin-less printing”mode, an image is printed in an area other than the front and rearedges, all of the 256 nozzles of each color are used for discharging.However, when the printing is performed on the front or rear edge in the“margin-less printing”, only 64 nozzles included in area A are used toform the image.

Image data to be printed on the endmost portion of the printing mediumis created, extending off the front edge Pa to the outside. The purposeof this is to ensure formation of an image with no margin even if thereare slight variations in conveyance accuracy and discharging directionof the printing apparatus. To this end, a portion facing area A of theprinting head 31 is preliminarily provided with the absorber 403.Therefore, the ink discharged running off the endmost portion of theprinting medium can be almost completely received by the absorber 403.The arrangement like this applies to right and left edges of theprinting medium.

When one-line printing scanning is completed, the printing medium P isconveyed by the conveying roller 14 and a next printing scanning isperformed. The next printing scanning is also provided to a printing forwhich only the 64 nozzles included in area A are used. Such mainprinting scanning and conveying operation are repeated, and when no inkcomes to run off the front edge Pa even if the discharge is performed byall of the nozzles of the printing head 31, the range of the nozzlesallowed to perform the discharge on the printing head 31 is expanded tothe whole area. Thereafter, the printing scanning by all of the 256nozzles and the conveying operation corresponding to a printing width ofthis printing scanning are repeated until printing in the vicinity ofthe rear edge Pb of the printing medium P.

FIG. 5C shows a state in which printing is performed in the vicinity ofthe rear edge Pb. Also in this state, the 64 nozzles included in area Aare used to discharge the ink, running off the rear edge Pb to theoutside. As is the case with the front edge, the ink discharged runningoff is almost completely received by the absorber 403.

As in the present embodiment, any arrangement in which the printingmedium P is moved while being supported by the top faces of the ribs 401and 402 formed in a position projecting beyond the absorber 403 and theplaten plane prevents the printing medium P from making contact with theabsorber 403 and the back side thereof from being contaminated.

<Preliminary Discharge Operation>

Hereinafter, a preliminary discharge sequence during printing in thepresent embodiment will be described.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a preliminary discharge controlprocessing. This processing is carried out by the MPU 601 reading andexecuting a control program stored in the ROM 602.

While the printing apparatus is waiting for printing data, i.e., noprinting operation is being performed, the discharge port surface of theprinting head 31 is capped in the home position. When reception of aprinting command from the host device 610 is confirmed, the MPU 601operates the capping mechanism 11 to open the discharge port surface ofthe printing head 31 (step S301). And in a subsequent step S302, apreliminary discharge from all of the nozzles toward the cappingmechanism 11 is performed.

Next, in step S303, a printable time (PENBL) is initialized to apredetermined value. The printable time (PENBL) is defined as a time forwhich the printing head is expected to normally perform a subsequentdischarge even in a state where the discharge is not being performed. Aninitial value of PENBL is determined in accordance with performance ofthe printing head and the printing apparatus.

In step S304, a measured value (Dcount(i); i=1 to N, where N is a totalnumber of nozzles) of a nozzle counter which measures the number ofdischarge actuations for each nozzle of the printing head 31 isinitialized to “0”.

The process then goes to step S305 to start an interrupt timer to createtiming for updating the printable time (PENBL) at predetermined timeintervals. In the present embodiment, an interrupt time interval (TINRT)is 50 msec. Interrupt processing in the present embodiment will bebriefly described below.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating the interrupt processing by theinterrupt timer. First, in step S801, a judgment is made whether or nota next printing scanning is to be provided to the front or rear edge inthe “margin-less printing”. A method of the judgment may be a known one.For example, when printing is performed on the front or rear edge in the“margin-less printing”, a predetermined memory within the printingapparatus is set to “1”; otherwise it is set to “0”. And the memoryvalue is referenced for judgment. If, in step S801, it is judged thatthe next printing scanning is not provided to the front or rear edge inthe “margin-less printing”, the process goes to step S805.

In step S805, a check is made to see if measured values (Dcount(i)=1, N)of nozzle counters of all the nozzles for all the colors reach apredetermined threshold value (TH). In the present embodiment, TH is setto 3. If all of the measured values of the nozzle counters satisfyDcount≧3, the process goes to step S807 to reset the printable time(PENBL) for initialization. On the other hand, if the measured value ofany one of the nozzle counters satisfies Dcount<3, the process goes tostep S806 to subtract 50 msec from the printable time (PENBL) to updatethe printable time (PENBL).

If, in step S801, it is judged that the next printing scanning isprovided to the front or rear edge in the “margin-less printing”, theprocess goes to step S802. In step S802, a check is made to see if themeasured values (Dcount(i)=1, N) of 64 nozzle counters included in areaA for all the colors reach the threshold value (TH). That is, if all ofthe measured values of the nozzle counters included in area A satisfyDcount≧3, the process goes to step S803 to reset the printable time(PENBL) for initialization. If the measured value of any one of thenozzle counters satisfies Dcount<3, the process goes to step S804 tosubtract 50 msec from the printable time (PENBL) to update the printabletime (PENBL).

When setting of the printable time (PENBL) is completed by steps S803 toS807, the process goes to step S808 to initialize all of the measuredvalues (Dcount(i); i=1 to N) of the nozzle counters to “0”. This is theend of the interrupt processing.

The interrupt processing described in FIG. 8, if the timer is alreadystarted by step S305 in FIG. 7, is executed every 50 msec even duringprocessing of a subsequent step S306 and following steps.

Now, going back again to the flow chart of FIG. 7, when a printingoperation is started in step S306, the printing head 31 is moved toperform printing scanning in step S307. The printing apparatus in thepresent embodiment performs so-called bidirectional printing, in whichprinting is performed by discharging ink in both forward and backwardscanning directions of the carriage. Thus, in each printing scanning,the carriage is first accelerated to a predetermined speed and ink isdischarged on the printing medium during movement at a constant speed ofthe predetermined speed. And then, the carriage is decelerated and thedirection of the movement is reversed. This process is carried out asone printing scanning.

In the present embodiment, however, processing of step S308 issimultaneously performed immediately before the carriage 2 isdecelerated. In step S308, a judgment is made whether or not allprinting tasks within a page are completed in current printing scanning.If it is judged that they are completed, this processing will beterminated. If it is judged that image data to be printed still exits,the process goes to step S309.

In step S309, a current printable time (PENBL) is compared with a time(Tscan) required for a next printing scanning. If PENBL is equal to orgreater than Tscan, the next printing scanning is deemed to be possiblewithout any preliminary discharge operation and the process returns tostep S307. On the other hand, if PENBL is smaller than Tscan, apreliminary discharge operation is judged to be necessary before thenext printing scanning and the process goes to step S310.

In step S310, the preliminary discharge operation of the printing head31 is performed. In the present embodiment, a preliminary dischargeposition is a capping position as the home position. The preliminarydischarge may be performed on all the nozzles for all the colors, but ifthe next printing scanning is provided to the front or rear edge in the“margin-less printing”, the preliminary discharge may be performed ononly the nozzles included in area A.

In a subsequent step S311, the printable time (PENBL) is reset to theinitial value.

Further, in step S312, all of the measured values (Dcount(i); i=1 to N)of the nozzle counters are reset to “0”. Thereafter, the process returnsto step S307 for the next printing scanning.

Incidentally, even after this processing has been completed as a resultof the judgment in step S308, if a next printing command is inputted ina relatively short time, the process can be started with step S307.However, if no printing command is inputted in a predetermined time, theprinting head 31 is moved to the home position and capped by the cappingmechanism 11.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, even when thetime (Tscan) required for a next printing scanning is compared with theprintable time (PENBL) for which printing is possible without anypreliminary discharge with each completion of printing scanning inaccordance with the conventional preliminary discharge method, nozzlesin an area where discharge is not performed in the next printingscanning are excluded from judgment on the printable time (PENBL). Thatis, even in such a situation where printing is being performed on thefront or rear edge in the “margin-less printing”, there is no chancethat the preliminary discharge is improperly performed for nozzles notused for the printing. Consequently, the decrease in the throughput andthe amount of ink consumption associated with the preliminary dischargecan be minimized.

Second Embodiment

In the above-mentioned embodiment, a printing mode, “margin-lessprinting”, has been described, but the present invention is notapplicable only to the printing mode, “margin-less printing”. It isbroadly applicable to a printing mode in which printing scanning isperformed using only a part of a plurality of nozzles provided in theprinting head. Hereinafter, application to a normal printing mode, not“margin-less printing”, will be described.

As described above, the printing medium is conveyed by two pairs ofrollers. One of the two pairs of rollers is a pair of rollers locatedupstream of the printing head, specifically, a pair of rollersconsisting of the conveying roller 14 and the pinch roller 15. The otheris a pair of rollers located downstream of the printing head,specifically, a pair of rollers consisting of the discharging roller 20and the spur roller.

When printing is performed on a central part, not the front and rearportions of the printing medium, the printing medium is retained andconveyed by these two pairs of rollers. Therefore, the conveyanceaccuracy of the printing medium is high. When printing is performed onthe front and rear portions of the printing medium, however, theprinting medium is retained and conveyed by only one of these two pairsof rollers. Hence, the conveyance accuracy of the printing medium islow.

In this case, as described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-openNo. 2002-137371, when printing is performed on the front and rearportions of the printing medium, it is useful to reduce the number ofnozzles used and the amount of each conveyance, compared to when theprinting is performed on the central part. According to this approach,the printing medium can be conveyed with a relatively high accuracy atthe front and rear portions.

Incidentally, in accordance with the above-mentioned approach, even inthe normal printing mode, not the “margin-less printing”, when printingis performed on the front and rear portions, the range of use of thenozzles is limited, compared to when the printing is performed on thecentral part. Then, as with the “margin-less printing” in the firstembodiment, when printing is performed on the front and rear portions,only the nozzles in the limited range of use (area of use) are used asobjects of judgment on the printable time (PENBL). Specifically, asdescribed in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, the current printable time (PENBL) iscompared with the time (Tscan) required for a next printing scanningonly for nozzles to be used. And, if PENBL is equal to or greater thanTscan, it is judged that the next printing scanning can be performedwithout any preliminary discharge operation, and the next printingscanning is performed without any preliminary discharge operation. Onthe other hand, if PENBL is smaller than Tscan, it is judged that thepreliminary discharge operation is necessary before the next printingscanning is performed, and the preliminary discharge is performed beforethe next printing scanning.

According to the foregoing arrangement, even in the normal printingmode, not the “margin-less printing”, the nozzles in the area (range)where the discharge is not performed in the next printing scanning canbe excluded from judgment on the printable time (PENBL). Accordingly, animproper preliminary discharge can be prevented.

Other Embodiments

In addition, the foregoing first and second embodiments are arranged tocompare the printable time (PENBL) with the time required for the nextprinting scanning (Tscan), but the present invention is not limitedthereto. For a printing apparatus capable of setting the initial valueof PENBL to a greater value in advance, another unit, for example, aplurality of printing scanning units may be set up and both may becompared to perform the preliminary discharge.

Further, in the foregoing description, the flow chart (FIG. 7) based onthe preliminary discharge sequence described in the Japanese PatentApplication Laid-open No. 2004-082629, is used, but the presentinvention is not limited to such process. Instead of adjusting theprintable time (PENBL) at the predetermined timing as in theabove-mentioned Publication, for example, the arrangement as describedin the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 63-252748 is alsoacceptable. If any printing apparatus has a device for counting thenumber of discharges on a nozzle-by-nozzle basis and also includes amechanism for determining whether or not the preliminary discharge isperformed by the use of the count value, the present invention caneffectively function.

Furthermore, in the foregoing first and second embodiments, descriptionshave been made using the arrangement wherein the preliminary dischargeoperation is performed toward the capping mechanism 11 in the homeposition, but the present invention is not limited thereto. Among recentink jet printing apparatuses, there are many types of printing apparatusthat have a preliminary discharge pad for receiving the preliminarydischarge pre-mounted in a closer position than the capping mechanism 11on both sides of the printing area in the carriage scanning direction.With such arrangement, even when the preliminary discharge is neededduring printing operation, the carriage 2 does not have to be moved tothe capping mechanism 11 every time. Since the preliminary dischargeoperation can be performed on the preliminary discharge pad located in acloser position, it is possible to perform the preliminary dischargeoperation more efficiently in terms of the throughput.

Besides, in the foregoing first and second embodiments, there has beendescribed a form in which the range of the nozzles to be used is limitedfor the front-portion or rear-portion printing in the “margin-lessprinting” or “normal printing”, but the present invention is not limitedto this form. Any ink jet printing apparatus that has a mechanismcapable of preliminarily detecting that printing scanning is performedby nozzles included in a part of the nozzle area provided in theprinting head can achieve the advantageous effect of the presentinvention. That is, as shown in the flow chart of FIG. 8, providing aprocess and device for judging whether or not a next printing operationis to be performed only by a predetermined part of the nozzles avoidsdecreasing the throughput and consuming more ink than necessary becauseof the preliminary discharge operation.

Moreover, in the foregoing embodiments, the ink jet printing apparatusarranged to discharge the ink from the nozzles by the use of thermalenergy has been described as an example, but the present invention isnot limited thereto. A printing apparatus arranged to discharge ink fromnozzles by the use of mechanical vibrations of piezo elements or thelike is, of course, applicable. Thus, any ink jet printing apparatusthat prints an image by the use of the printing head provided with aplurality of nozzles capable of discharging ink can completely achievethe advantageous effect of the present invention.

The present invention has been described in detail with respect topreferred embodiments, and it will now be apparent from the foregoing tothose skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be madewithout departing from the invention in its broader aspects, and it isthe intention, therefore, that the appended claims cover all suchchanges and modifications as fall within the true spirit of theinvention.

This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No.2005-198953 filed Jul. 7, 2005, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein.

1. An ink jet printing apparatus capable of printing an image on aprinting medium using a printing head having a plurality of printingelements for discharging ink, comprising: counting means for countingthe number of ink discharges by the printing head; judging means forjudging whether or not a preliminary discharge operation by the printinghead is necessary, based on the number counted by the counting means;and means for causing the printing head to perform the preliminarydischarge operation in accordance with a result of the judgment by thejudging means, wherein when a printing operation is performed by usableprinting elements corresponding to a portion of the plurality ofprinting elements, the judging means judges whether or not thepreliminary discharge operation is necessary based on the number countedfor the portion of the plurality of printing elements.
 2. An ink jetprinting apparatus capable of printing an image on a printing mediumusing a printing head having a plurality of printing elements fordischarging ink, comprising: print control means for performing a firstprinting operation in which printing can be performed on a central partof the printing medium using the plurality of printing elements and asecond printing operation in which printing can be performed on frontand rear portions of the printing medium using a portion of theplurality of printing elements; counting means for counting the numberof ink discharges by the printing head; judging means for judgingwhether or not a preliminary discharge operation by the printing head isnecessary, based on the number counted by the counting means; and meansfor causing the printing head to perform the preliminary dischargeoperation in accordance with a result of the judgment by the judgingmeans, wherein when the second printing operation is performed, thejudging means judges whether or not the preliminary discharge operationis necessary based on the number counted for the portion of the printingelements, and when the first printing operation is performed, thejudging means judges whether or not the preliminary discharge operationis necessary based on the number counted for the plurality of theprinting elements.
 3. An ink jet printing apparatus capable of printingan image on a printing medium using a printing head including aplurality of printing elements to discharge ink, comprising: determiningmeans for determining whether or not only a portion of the plurality ofprinting elements are usable for a printing operation; counting meansfor counting the number of ink discharges by the printing elements forthe printing operation; judging means for judging whether or not apreliminary discharge operation by the printing head is necessary basedon the number counted by the counting means; and means for causing theprinting head to perform the preliminary discharge operation inaccordance with a result of the judgment by the judging means, whereinif the determining means determines that only the portion of theplurality of printing elements are usable, the judging means judgeswhether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary based onthe number counted for the portion of the printing elements, and if thedetermining means does not determine that only the portion of theplurality of printing elements are usable, the judging means judgeswhether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary based onthe number counted for the plurality of printing elements.
 4. Theapparatus according to claim 3, wherein the judging means compares thenumber counted by the counting means with a threshold value atpredetermined time intervals to judge whether or not the preliminarydischarge operation is necessary.
 5. The apparatus according to claim 3,further comprising: means for performing a main scan for causing theprinting head to scan the printing medium in order to perform theprinting operation, wherein the judging means compares the numbercounted by the counting means with a threshold value at a predeterminedtiming to set a printable time from the predetermined timing, andfurther compares the printable time with a time required for the mainscan to judge whether or not the preliminary discharge operation isnecessary.
 6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein if theprintable time is shorter than the time required for the main scan, thepreliminary discharge operation is performed before a next main scan. 7.An ink jet printing method capable of printing an image on a printingmedium using a printing head including a plurality of printing elementsfor discharging ink, comprising the steps of: counting the number of inkdischarges by the printing head; judging whether or not a preliminarydischarge operation by the printing head is necessary, based on thenumber counted by the counting step; and causing the printing head toperform the preliminary discharge operation in accordance with a resultof the judgment, wherein when a printing operation is performed byusable printing elements corresponding to a portion of the plurality ofprinting elements, in the judging step, whether or not the preliminarydischarge operation is necessary is judged based on the number countedfor the portion of the plurality of printing elements.
 8. An ink jetprinting method capable of printing an image on a printing medium usinga printing head having a plurality of printing elements for dischargingink, comprising: a first printing step of performing printing on acentral part of the printing medium using the plurality of printingelements; a second printing step of performing printing on front andrear portions of the printing medium using a portion of the plurality ofprinting elements; a counting step of counting the number of inkdischarges by the printing head; a judging step of judging whether ornot a preliminary discharge operation by the printing head is necessary,based on the number counted by the counting step; and a step of causingthe printing head to perform the preliminary discharge operation inaccordance with a result of the judgment, wherein, for the secondprinting step, whether or not the preliminary discharge operation isnecessary is judged based on the number counted for the portion of theprinting elements in the judging step, and for the first printing step,whether or not the preliminary discharge operation is necessary isjudged based on the number counted for the plurality of the printingelements in the judging step.
 9. A preliminary discharge control methodfor an ink jet printing apparatus capable of printing an image on aprinting medium using a printing head having a plurality of printingelements to discharge ink, comprising the steps of: determining whetheror not only a portion of the plurality of printing elements are usablefor a printing operation; counting the number of ink discharges fromeach of the printing elements for the printing operation; judgingwhether or not a preliminary discharge operation by the printing head isnecessary based on the number counted by the counting step; and causingthe printing head to perform the preliminary discharge operation inaccordance with a result of the judgment by the judging step, wherein ifit is determined that only the portion of the plurality of printingelements are usable in the determining step, whether or not thepreliminary discharge operation is necessary is judged based on thenumber counted for the portion of the printing elements in the judgingstep, and if it is not determined that only the portion of the pluralityof printing elements are usable in the determining step, whether or notthe preliminary discharge operation is necessary is judged based on thenumber counted for the plurality of printing elements in the judgingstep.